Desiderata (Excerpts).
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story.
Many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
No less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
Keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.
--- Max Ehrmann, 1927

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Living wages.

Kia-ora

One of the "grass roots" initiatives that has arisen partly out of the occupy movement is The living wage movement. Living Wage

Predictably those who award themselves 100k bonuses and 17% pay rises, while dodging taxes are opposed.

"Don’t you love hearing the rich say the working poor can’t have more
pay? The faux concern that higher wages cost jobs from the same people
who support huge executive pay packets and tax cuts? If you really
believed higher wages meant fewer jobs, you would cut the CEO’s pay in
half, not dick around over a few dollars an hour for real workers. (Emphasis mine).

Of course, the truth is more money in working people’s hands means
more demand for the basics, meaning more jobs. It’s well-established
empirical fact. Anyone who argues otherwise is just using a false
justification that masks their real – much less altruistic reasons – for
wanting the poor to stay poor.""

How, if low wages are good for the economy, do the wealthiest justify
awarding themselves higher pay while the rest of us have pay cuts.?
We have a shortage of skilled technicians and trades in New Zealand. How is it econmically justified that their pay has been cut year by year, while financial finaglers, directors and "managers' where there is no shortage continually award themselves more pay? Japan and Germany seem to find competent managers, with pay differentials much less than ours.
How do managers, bankers or politicians, and other non-producing parasites, sleep at night when they collect 100's of thousands a year and put a miserly $13.50 an hour into their hard workers pay packets.

At the same time, in New Zealand, half of our wealtheist people pay little or no tax. Wealthy dodge tax
One of the main reasons the PIG's went under is the lack of tax take from the wealthy. In Greece dodging taxes was a national sport. In New Zealand we just make the wealthy avoiding paying for the social and natural capital they use, legal.